1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [1]
Abbey, Edward (1927–1989) Novelist, journalist, lecturer, and university professor “Cactus Ed” Abbey wrote about the American West and the environmental problems created by human exploitation of the region. Abbey often called for radical methods to remedy environmental ills. His 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, about a group of environmental vigilantes, inspired the founding of the Earth First! organization.
Abernathy, Ralph David (1926–1990) A close associate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abernathy was a key activist in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956, which began when Rosa Parks refused to yield to a city ordinance segregating public transportation. After King’s assassination in 1968, Abernathy became leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and carried on the fight for racial equality.
Acheson, Dean (1893–1971) A brilliant graduate of Yale University and of Harvard Law School and private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Acheson, as undersecretary of state from 1945 to 1947, persuaded the Senate to approve U.S. membership in the newly created United Nations. He was the dominant force in shaping the Cold War policy dubbed in 1947 the “Truman Doctrine,” which pledged economic and military assistance to any nation fighting the expansion of Communism. With Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Acheson formulated and promoted the Marshall Plan, for the post World War II relief and rebuilding of Europe.
Adams, Abigail (1774–1818) Married to John Adams on October 25, 1764, Abigail advised her husband, supported the Revolution of which he was a prime architect, and took on the solo management of the family farm and John’s business affairs, not only preserving but increasing the family fortune. As her husband began work with Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence, Abigail asked him to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”
Adams, Ansel (1902–1984) This photographer’s meticulously crafted large-format photographic landscapes of the American West—especially of the nation’s great National Parks—awakened in many Americans both a love for the photographic art and the wild beauty of the continent’s natural environment.
Adams, Henry (1838–1918) Great grandson of John Adams, Henry Adams was a journalist, historian, novelist, and educator whose 1906 autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, presented himself as the typical man of the dawning 20th century, struggling to move from a world defined by faith and custom into one both shaped and torn by science and technology, a world in which absolute certainty had yielded to relativism and doubt. The book is one of the great spiritual and intellectual testaments of American literature.
Adams, John (1735–1826) The son of a shoemaker and farmer, Adams became a highly successful lawyer in Massachusetts and was among the first great champions of American independence. He was a leading member of the Continental Congress (1774–1777), author of his state’s constitution (1780), signer of the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution (1783), first American ambassador to Britain (1785–88), vice president under George Washington (1789–97), and the nation’s second president (1797–1801). A radical in the Revolution, Adams was a conservative force after it.
Adams, John Quincy (1767–1848) Son of John Adams, J. Q. Adams was a formidable diplomat who, as secretary of state under President James Monroe, formulated the Monroe Doctrine, by which the president served notice on all European powers that any attempt to colonize or interfere with any state in the Western Hemisphere would be treated as an attack on the United States. As a president, Adams was a visionary, who proposed creating a national university and a national astronomical observatory, creating